


Rebuild All Your Ruins

by the_irish_mayhem



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: BAMF Jane Foster, BAMF Sif (Marvel), Bisexual Brunnhilde | Valkyrie (Marvel), Bisexual Female Character, F/F, F/M, Fosterson Week, Pre-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Ragnarok AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-16
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2019-08-24 09:19:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16637186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_irish_mayhem/pseuds/the_irish_mayhem
Summary: Ragnarok AU. Despite his hunt for the Infinity Stones taking him far beyond Jane’s galaxy, Thor had always managed to get word to her that he was safe. When months pass without any word from him, Lady Sif arrives with a dire message: Thor has gone missing, Heimdall has been removed from his post as Gatekeeper, and the Warriors Three wonder if their king is truly Odin.“No one is looking for him,” Sif says. “The king doesn’t seem to care, my brother can’t send me to him, and Thor told me that if there was anyone in the universe who would be able to achieve Bifrost travel without a Bifrost, it would be you.”





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Fosterson Week! This is for Day 2, Ragnarok/Infinity War AU. I know what you’re thinking, “oh my god not another multichapter that you never finish” but guess what it’s a multichapter and it’s my main Nano project so. I’m optimistic. Without further ado....

It was late afternoon when Thor told her that he had to leave.

Back in Puente Antiguo with much better funding this time around, she couldn’t have been more far removed from the violence capturing the entire world’s attention in Sokovia, but she still felt as though she was smack in the middle of it.

She’d spent the better part of the last few days trying to work and watch the news coverage of the Ultron versus Avengers drama. She hadn’t managed to achieve much of the former whilst the latter unfolded, and even when the day was won, the people of Sokovia saved and every major world leader calling for Tony Stark’s head, there was still a pit in her stomach that didn’t abate until Thor returned in a dazzling array of Bifrost light just outside her lab.

Despite her worry for his wellbeing being assuaged, The Bifrost was a dead giveaway that something else was amiss.

“You’re leaving, aren’t you?” she asked when he walked through the doors.

He approached her silently, dropping his hammer on the way so that he could take her face in his hands. “Yes.”

She reached up to wrap her hands around his forearms, and closed her eyes. Jane tried to capture the moment in as much clarity as she could--the chill of his chainmail under her fingers. The warmth of his hands upon her cheeks. The smell of ozone and rain that he seemed to bring with him no matter what.

Thor said, “The Infinity Stones are becoming a problem I can’t ignore.”

Jane shivered at the mention.

( _Sometimes she thought she could still feel the Aether, its burning tendrils of power threading through her veins. And then it was gone, a memory once again._ )

His right thumb began to stroke softly along her cheekbone as he continued, “They weren’t seen for millennia and now they’re cropping up everywhere in the galaxy. It’s a sign that something dark is coming. And I’m afraid that if I don’t do something--”

Jane cut him off, “You don’t need to defend yourself.” She opened her eyes, finding him staring earnestly down at her. “I knew that this was probably going to be a part of the deal of us being together. You having to leave.”

“I wish it wasn’t so, Jane.”

She leaned harder against his right hand, her eyes falling shut again. “Me too.”

He kissed her quickly. “I have something for you.”

One of his hands pressed a smooth, thin, round object into hers, and she backed away from him to examine it.

It was about half the size of her palm, and resembled an opal in color and weight. She turned it a few times, admiring way it shone in the light.

“It’s beautiful,” she said.

“It’s a communication stone. It functions like a hologram,” he explained, reaching out to drag a finger across the stone’s surface. It lit up with a gentle glow at his touch, and something that resembled a basic user interface was projected over it. Jane could parse through what it meant from her experience in Asgard’s palace library.

“Unfortunately, I’ll only be able to send messages to you, and not the other way around.”

“Shoddy Earth communication infrastructure?”

His answering grin was thin, with no real mirth. “Something like that.”

“Stupid Midgardian satellites.”

That pulled a small laugh from him. A beat passed before he spoke again, “Somehow, I always imagine that this will get easier with time. That never seems to be the case.”

Jane felt a pressure rise in her throat. “Yeah,” she replies, voice thready.

They walked out of the lab silently, hand in hand, both dreading the inevitable final words before they had to go their separate ways.

Jane released his hand, and took a step back. She didn’t know what to do with hers once she let go of him, so she twined them together behind her back, fingers playing at the loose flannel there.

“I’ll, um… I’ll see you when you get back,” she said, a casual air that sounded forced even to her.

“Of course,” he replied, toying with Mjolnir in a way that could only be described as fiddling. That made her want to grin. One of the most powerful objects in the galaxy in his grasp, and he fiddles with it. “I will return for you.”

Jane made a noise. “Don’t say that. Not good luck for us, that one.”

“At least now we have that,” he said, gesturing to her hand.

“Yeah,” she said, the stone feeling warm and slippery in her hand. She tucked it into her back pocket.

Then Thor just smiled in that soft way of his and stepped back towards her, boldly, fed up with their all too polite exchange. Their kiss was much like their first, sloppy, a bit desperate, trying to fit a separation’s worth of kisses, words, emotions, into a single act. That first time was fueled by hope and giddiness, a flavor of excitement that came with kissing someone you had a crush on and just found out liked you back. This time it was by love, desperation, intimate knowledge of each other (the way his right hand pulled her hip into him, the way his other pulled at the hair at the base of her neck, her hands messing his hair, so much longer now than when she’d met him, darker too, and it’s too much--).

When they pulled away, Thor‘s lips had barely left hers before he was pulling her to him again, this time kissing her forehead with such tenderness that it hurt.

“I love you,” he breathed against her hairline.

She replied, “I love you, too.”

They wordlessly pulled away from each other, and Thor walked a few paces away. He raised Mjolnir. In a rainbow of light and the sound of the universe bending around him, he was gone.

 

* * *

 

 

She got his first message a week later.

“Hello, my love,” he said, all warm and soft and she missed him all over again. “I’m back on Asgard for the time being. It is good to see my friends again. My father approves of my decision to investigate the Stones.” Thor shook his head, just barely. “I wish you were here.” That made her smile, the pressure of missing him squeezing her chest a little tighter. “I hope your work is going well,” he added. “Please listen to Darcy when she tells you to sleep. I love you more than I can say. Until next time.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Hello, my love. I left Asgard several weeks ago to pursue the Stones on my own. My friends were not pleased with this development. I thought Sif would skin me alive. I couldn’t speak very freely while I was in Asgard, but I think there is something afoot with my father. I do not know what, but Sif and Hogun agree with me. He hasn’t been the same since my mother died. Perhaps his grief is exacting a larger toll in his old age, but he refuses to take to the Odinsleep and his countenance has been inconsistent to say the least… Regardless, they are going to be watching him very closely in my absence. I pray that they find nothing, but I think my fears will be proven correct. I love you dearly, Jane.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Hello, my love. I am on one of the moons of Alfheim. One day, I will take you here. The natural beauty of the night sky here is unsurpassed in any of the other realms. You will love it, I’m sure. I miss you more and more with each passing day. I love you.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Hello, my love. I am sorry my communications have not been as frequent of late. The realms are in chaos. I am certain there is something amiss with my father, even if I don’t know what that is yet. I have much I wish I could tell you, but I must keep this brief. I love you.”

 

* * *

 

 

There were some weeks when Thor did not send messages to her at all. And Jane didn’t mind. Much. She minded as much as any other girlfriend who really missed her boyfriend when he was away from her. They just had the unfortunate caveat that there was several galaxies’ worth of distance between them.

It’s had been eight months since they said goodbye in front of her lab in Puente Antiguo. Eight long months, but at the very least they’d been productive. Darcy had been putting the communications part of her political science degree to use in organizing her lecture and conference schedule. Much of the general public fervor over the Foster Theory had died down after the latest Avengers crisis with Ultron had made the memory Battle of Manhattan fade somewhat. Or at least it shifted focus to issues in robotics and artificial intelligence rather than wormholes and aliens. But the scientific community was still very much enthralled by her practical applications and demonstration of wormholes, and she knew through several sources that she was at the top of the shortlist for the Nobel prize in Physics.

She hadn’t won it in the immediate year after the publication of the Foster Theory, but she’d won a slew of other prizes, including the Kavli prize for Astrophysics and the Wolf Foundation prize for Physics; neither of which were anything to be taken lightly. It was amazing she’d gotten them at all. Many scientists work their whole lives without even so much as tasting a portion of the success she’d enjoyed in her still young career.

Still, it was sort of like her white whale, and she really, really hoped that Thor would be home in time to watch her acceptance speech.

 

* * *

 

 

He wasn’t home when they announced it; he wasn’t home when she flew to Oslo for her acceptance.

And honestly, winning was fulfilling, it really was. It was validation for all her years of hard work and persistence. It was validation for following her gut, even when her advisors second-guessed her when she was essentially chasing storms as a way of proving the existence of wormholes.

It meant grant funding falling out of the sky for whatever she wanted to pursue, no matter how hare-brained it might sound.

It was also another knock against all those old astrophysics professors who treated high level science as an impregnable boys’ club, who made her doubt herself so much she’d nearly quit, who had said without saying “You don’t have what it takes.”

When she was writing her speech, she’d half-jokingly typed out “To all the professors in the Culver astrophysics department: eat shit.” Darcy had made an admirable attempt at getting her to keep it, but Jane did err on the side of professionalism.

(She definitely did say it in her head though when she concluded her speech.)

Jane’s only wish was that Thor was there to see it.

It had been one year and five months since she had said goodbye.

 

* * *

 

 

(She wished she could say she never cried about him, but she did.)

(In the darkness of their [her] bedroom, she would sometimes lay there and stare and the ceiling and wonder if he would ever come back.)

(In the light of day, she knew he would. In the light of day it was easy to remember that they’d been together for years, they’d been through their ups and downs and made it through to the fabled other side.)

(But then she would remember she does not belong here any more than a goat belongs at a banquet table and wonder if maybe it’s all been in her head.)

(Those were hard nights.)

* * *

 

Even though his messages had been sporadic and short in the last three or so months, Jane noticed when she didn’t hear from him for over a month.

His last message had been brief, and he looked tired and frustrated.

“Nothing makes sense,” he’d said, running a frustrated hand over his face. “The Infinity Stones appearing now means something, but no one seems to know what. Few are even paying attention. All of my leads are going cold. I am hitting dead end after dead end, and honestly, it’s difficult for me to keep justify being away from you when I am achieving nothing I set out to do.” He had sighed. “I apologize for my ranting, it wasn’t my intention to burden you with my failures, but I have few allies in many of these parts of the galaxy, and far fewer friends with whom to share my thoughts. I wish there had been a way for you to send word back to me. I do wish I had your counsel.”

He’d parted with a few other words espousing how much he missed her, and had closed with his usual “I love you.”

And then nothing.

At first she didn’t notice, but when the silence began to drag on her worry began to stir in more noticeable ways.

“He has to go dark sometimes though, right?” asked Darcy when Jane brought up her concern over dinner almost two months into his silence. “He’s doing the whole galactic stealth investigation thing.”

They’re at the Hilton in Pasadena, put up by the California Institute of Technology for AstroData2020s, a four day workshop event for which she was a keynote speaker. She and Darcy were sharing a takeaway meal from an Indian place a few blocks up the road.

“Never for this long. It was weird enough when I didn’t hear anything from him for a month, but now it’s almost two.” She looked down at the crystal laid on the table. “I don’t know. My gut is telling me something isn’t right.”

Darcy set her fork down and folded her arms on the table. “So maybe we poke into it. Have you ever tried using that thing to contact him?”

Jane tapped the surface, bringing up the user interface. “As far as I’ve been able to tell, it’s just a receiver.”

“Okay, I love you and think you are a supergenius of no compare, but your specialty is space stuff. Maybe we should reach out to Tony, see if he can make heads or tails.”

“I suppose I could send him an email.”

Darcy rolls her eyes. “You know how he feels about emails.” She digs her phone out of her pocket, tapping away on the screen. “I’ll call after dinner. If he doesn’t answer, we can go through Pepper. Just gotta work your connections, girl.”

“Maybe I’m just being dumb,” Jane said, a sudden wave of uncertainty going through her. Because what if nothing was wrong he was just-- “I’m sure he’s okay--”

“But you’re not though,” Darcy interrupted. “You’re not sure.” She met Jane’s eyes seriously and reached for her arm with her free hand. “And it’s okay to reach out to friends when you’re not sure.”

Jane took a moment to breathe and remind herself that no, it’s not just her and her old camper anymore.

“Okay?” Darcy asked, searching for Jane’s assent.

“Yeah,” Jane said slowly. “Yeah. And we can go over the specs for the Realm Hopper 2.0. while we’re at it.”

“I still like the idea to call it the Rampant Realm Rabbit.”

“ _No_.”

Then, a knock sounded through the room.

Jane and Darcy both looked at the door, then at each other.

“Someone from the school?” Darcy asked.

Jane doubted it. “They could’ve just called me.”

“Last I heard, you weren’t on any villain hotlists in a while, so probably not a criminal.”

Jane stood and walked to the door. “What, are you getting push notifications about that?” She checked the peephole, expecting anyone but the person she saw standing opposite.

She didn’t even hear Darcy’s answer as she opened the door, revealing Sif who looked, surprisingly, relieved to see her. 

Her black hair was drawn back into a tight ponytail, and she wore Earth clothing--a dark red leather jacket matched and a black tee underneath with dark wash jeans and a pair of red Nikes. Despite the Earth regalia, she still carried her sword sheathed behind her back.

“Jane Foster,” she breathed. “I am glad to see you.”

“You are?” Jane said, her reactionary answer making her internally cringe. Maybe she’d just imagined the slight resentment in Sif’s bearing towards her when she’d been on Asgard, but given what she knew of Odin’s opinions regarding who Thor should end up with, she felt her misgivings weren’t entirely unfounded.

“Yes,” Sif said. “Thor is missing, and the realms are in grave danger, and you are the only person who can help me.”


	2. II. Theren

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did fudge A LOT of science in this. @ all scientists, I'm sorry?

_“Thor is missing, and the realms are in grave danger, and you are the only person who can help me.”_

Jane’s shock at seeing Sif made the worry that had been gnawing at her gut solidify into a heavy brick.

“Is he alive?” she asked, suddenly hyperaware of how warm she was. Her fingers tightened on the door knob. She thought of Thor how she’d last seen him, so broad and warm and seemingly indestructible--

Sif sighed. “We don’t know.”

“Okay,” Jane breathed, determinedly telling the brick in her stomach to kindly fuck off. “Okay. Do you--just come in,” she said and stepped away from the door, allowing Sif into their hotel room and closing the door behind her.

There was a not insignificant part of Jane that suddenly felt self conscious, like when she first got up in front of her upper division Experimental Physics Methods class to answer a question, and she felt the odd urge to straighten the rumpled covers on the beds, stow her and Darcy’s food containers, make their space somehow more than a mid-budget hotel room. This part of her, though, was not strong enough to overtake the fear, shock, and confusion thrumming through her.

Darcy was standing now, looking between Jane and Sif, and Jane said, “Sif, this is my assistant Darcy. Darcy, Sif.”

Sif stepped forward, and reached a hand out. “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Darcy met Jane’s eyes before she reached out and took Sif’s hand. Darcy had heard plenty about Jane’s feelings regarding Sif--which were not disparaging thoughts, exactly, but rather more on the self-deprecating side. Jane liked to think she was past that, but old jealousy can be hard to shake completely. Especially when the object of her jealousy was standing right here, looking like she’d stepped off the catwalk and could walk on the battlefield in a blink.

“You too,” Darcy answered with an easy smile. “I didn’t think Asgardians knew how to shake hands.”

Sif smiled back, fondness in her tone when she said, “I have some friends on Midgard who helped me apprehend a criminal not terribly long ago. I’ve made a habit to visit when I can, and they’ve been kind enough to impart me with a great amount of knowledge of your customs. Perhaps you know them? SHIELD?”

Both Darcy and Jane shared a _yikes_ look between them.

“When was the last time you were here?” Jane asked.

Sif replied, “Do not worry, I am aware of the fallout that Hydra caused. My friends were fortunately on the right side. They continue their fight against Hydra even now.”

Jane didn’t really want to get into it with Sif about associating with anyone who even brushed shoulders with a bunch of Nazis, but she figured now wasn’t the time to throw that opinion out there. (Not even remotely brushing all the news about SHIELD functioning as a shadow agency with no government oversight or accountability, and all the panic over rogue agents and Inhumans--)

“They helped me locate you,” Sif continued.

“Oh boy,” Darcy said under her breath when Jane started to think maybe it was a good time after all to talk about the Not-Nazis--

“Jane’s not super fond on SHIELD,” Darcy explained quickly. “Stealing research and whatnot. Neither of us are, especially after the Nazi stuff. Long story. Now’s probably not the time to rehash all of that.” Darcy shot a look at Jane that said  _maybe now isn’t the time to go into that Jewish cultural scar._

Jane knew Darcy was right, and pushed past her reluctance and asked, “Right, so when was the last time you saw Thor?”

Sif sat heavily at the foot of one of the beds. “He returned to Asgard briefly after Midgard’s war with Ultron.”

“It was more like a long weekend,” Darcy said. “But go on.”

“He seemed--” she paused, searching. “Uneasy.”

“He told me he thought something was wrong with his dad,” Jane said, “and that he hadn’t been himself since Frigga was killed.” It had taken Jane a long time to be able to share that thought without automatically completing it as _was killed protecting me._

“He hasn’t been,” Sif agreed. “It’s hard to explain precisely, but I know Odin better than I knew my own father. Fandral and Volstagg weren’t entirely convinced, but Hogun agreed that not all was normal.”

Jane nodded. “Thor said that he couldn’t speak freely there.”

Sif looked at Jane quizzically. “How did Thor tell you this?”

“With this,” Jane said and produced the stone from her pocket.

Sif’s eyes widened, and she drew forward off the bed with a start. “A communication stone,” she breathed. “Thor gave you this?”

Jane nodded. “Just before he left.”

“Have you attempted to communicate with him since he went missing?”

Jane’s brow furrowed. “I thought this was only one way?”

Sif shook her head. “Communication stones can function across the known universe.”

Jane’s jaw dropped.

“That--” Her mouth worked for a few seconds but no sound came out.  _They can function across the known universe._  “That  _bastard_.”

Sif seemed confused for a moment before realization set in. “He said you could not contact him.”

“I cannot believe he would lie to me about this!” Jane said, suddenly steaming. “Oh my god, we could’ve been talking this whole time and yet he decided to just cut me out of his adventure like an absolute asshole. When I find him I am going to murder him.” She held up the stone. “You said this could work across the known universe, right?” Sif nodded, if a bit reluctantly. Jane laughed. “This is a quantum entangled communication device, I bet. Physicists have theorized about it for years, but-- I thought it might be, but I haven’t had the time to sit down and study it and I thought that with the restriction of one way communication ruled out the possibility but oh my god, I cannot  _believe_  this. That asshole, he is going to be in so much trouble. Oh my  _god_.”

She turns to Darcy. “Call Tony right now. I’m going to need his help if we’re going to find Thor.”

“If it makes any difference,” Sif offered, “I don’t believe his lie was malicious.”

“I’m with her,” Darcy said, phone in hand, likely already dialling Tony.

“Why?” Jane gritted out. “Wouldn’t be the first time he left me behind.”

With the phone up to her ear, Darcy gave her a look that said she would be paying for the irrationality of that comment later, but Sif answered for her.

“Jane, he loves you,” she said, with such finality and certainty it made Jane’s temper come up short for a moment. “You are an intelligent woman. You would have to be to understand the things that you do, so think about this for a moment. Thor set off on a potentially very dangerous mission, and now he is missing, likely being held captive by an enemy of Asgard. Communications between stones like those can be traced. Not easily, granted, but they can be with the proper time and motivation.

“I do not know much about the enemies that he pursued, but I am willing to wager that they would not have hesitated to abduct the prince of Asgard’s motal lover if they knew where to find her.”

Jane’s indignation began to fizzle; still there, no doubt, but now tempered with reason, and maybe a little embarrassment. “They could just ask Us Weekly,” she said. “They seem to always have the inside scoop on Thor’s love life.”

Darcy’s murmured voice from the corner of the room signaled that she’d gotten through to Stark. And Jane truly would need his help. As far as she could tell, using the communication stone would be the only way to find Thor. She had three degrees, but none of them in quantum physics. Her specialty was the big stuff. Astrophysics. Celestial movements. Universe origins. Wormholes. She needed someone who was into the small stuff. A certified quantum physicist, and that certainly wasn’t her. (Not that Tony would be either, but she figured in the interest of discretion and ease of access, he was probably her best bet on finding one.)

“So why are you here?” she finally asked Sif. “I mean, not that I’m-- I’m not-- I just feel like Midgard is probably the worst staging area for a rescue mission, right?”

Sif chuckled. “Not the worst, but not the best; you are correct.” She sat back down on the bed, looking down at her hands. “A few weeks ago, I was sent on an intelligence gathering mission to Knowhere.” She shook her head with a soft scoff. “Whatever prompted Odin to send me there, it was based on bad information. I was compromised almost immediately, and barely escaped the planet with my life. I called for my brother, but he did not answer.”

“Heimdall is your brother?” Darcy asked, rejoining the conversation.

Sif nodded. “He always answers if able, which means the Bifrost is no longer under his control.

“So it is my sinking suspicion that Odin sent me on this mission without intending for me to return.”

Jane swallowed. “He wouldn’t do that.” A heavy beat. “Would he?”

Sif looked up, pain on her face when she answered, “Before Knowhere, I would’ve said absolutely not. But once it happened, I couldn’t help but notice all the strange things about the mission. He wouldn’t allow me to take Hogun with me. Hogun is my preferred partner for such endeavors. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I did one without him.

“Now I can’t help but wonder if he intended to split us up.” She laughed softly. “Saying such things on Asgard would be considered seditious.”

“I’m not particularly fond of Odin after he called me a goat, so feel free to let loose all the seditious thoughts,” Jane said.

Sif shook her head. “It doesn’t matter right now. I ended up on Midgard because the ship I took from Knowhere wouldn’t get me anywhere else, and of the allies I have the universe, I trusted the ones I had here the most given the circumstances. And thus, here I am.”

“And you need Jane to help you get back to Asgard,” Darcy said, “or somewhere. Am I right?”

Sif nods. “I need to find Thor. No one is looking for him,” she said. “The king doesn’t seem to care, my brother can’t send me to him, and Thor told me that if there was anyone in the universe who would be able to achieve Bifrost travel without a Bifrost, it would be you.”

“Oh,” Jane said. It was exactly the kind of thing Thor would say, and despite her lingering annoyance at him for the unwitting protection he’d forced upon her, a surge of pride welled in her chest. “I have been working on a couple of different things. I’m a long ways off from being able to be as precise as the Bifrost. Like, decades off--” and decades was being optimistic, “--but I have developed a device based off my readings from the Convergence that can sense the natural pathways between realms, and we could hypothetically activate them with enough acceleration and friction.”

“We just haven’t been able to produce enough of either of those things,” Darcy finished.

Sif perked up. “Perhaps we can use the ship I arrived in. It’s not exactly the best of vessels, but perhaps pooling our resources would help solve your problems.”

Jane’s heart began to speed up with the promise of new discovery and innovation because maybe Sif was right--maybe the alien tech in the ship would be just the thing her devices needed to finally function. “It won’t be as effective as the Bifrost,” she warned again.

“But it is more than I had when I escaped Asgard,” Sif assured kindly.

(Jane really was wondering now if she’d imagined the animosity all along.)

“We can continue this discussion on our way to the airport,” Darcy said. “Tony has a jet waiting to take us to New York.”

“What about the conference?” Jane asked, suddenly remembering why she couldn’t just jet off to space to slap Thor again.

Darcy waved a hand, already handing Jane her small suitcase. “I called Dr. Rau since he owed you a favor for all the stuff you did for his last paper.”

“Perfect,” Jane breathed. Anish Rau was a fellow astrophysicist and a good friend, who, in Jane’s opinion, would probably benefit more from this conference than she would, given that he was an active professor at Dartmouth. “Thank you, Darcy.”

“Yes, I’m extraordinary. Now make sure you grab your toothbrush and stuff. I’ve already got an Uber waiting for us.” She turned to Sif. “Ever taken an Uber before?”

Sif looked absolutely confused. “I’m afraid the Allspeak is not working as well as it typically does. A what now?”

* * *

 

Ever since she’d first gone through the Bifrost, since she’d been hurtled through space faster than the speed of light and had seen galaxies and stars and nebulae and the full majesty of space blazing past a rainbow barrier of light, Jane had gained a rather romantic view of what wormhole travel would be like when she finally managed it herself. Realistically, she knew it probably wouldn’t be quite as refined as the Bifrost on her first go round, sure.

But somehow, her imagination had never conjured up this scene of her standing on a dusty alien planet, ship half buried in the sand and quite thoroughly engulfed in flames, standing next to Sif with the scalped remains of the Realm Hopper between them and wondering what the hell they were supposed to do now.

Initially, everything had gone exactly according to plan. Almost too well, even.

With Tony’s help, they’d extracted Sif’s ship from where it had crash landed in northern Canada, and Jane, for the first time, felt like she could relate to Luke Skywalker when he looked at the Millenium Falcon and saw a piece of junk. Because Sif’s ship was, quite frankly, a piece of junk. Leaps and bounds ahead of a lot of NASA’s most cutting edge tech in a lot of ways, but then there were also hundreds of blown fuses, large and small dents scattered across the entirety of the ship’s dull silver body, and one whole section of the fuselage seemed to be held shut with the alien equivalent of duct tape and dear hope. It was a four-occupant skiff, bullet-shaped with a few fins jetting off the body, a bit like a oversized model rocket ship. There were several windows crafted of some element not found on Midgard yet, apparently, that achieved diamond-like hardness and glass-like clarity. According to Sif, it was the only part of the ship that was actually worth much.

With a week of work, approximately sixty gallons of coffee, and less than twelve hours of sleep pooled between the two of them, Jane and Tony, plus a small team of trusted SI engineers, had altered the Realm Hopper 2.0 to function parallel to the ship’s (apparently outdated, Sif informed them, with only minor grumbling about how she “much disliked engineering while in school”) engine, which functioned much like the hypothesized Alcubierre drive (in other words, Jane was basically going to be using a Star Trek warp drive. Sweet.)

While they worked on repairing the ship and conducted experiments to make sure they’d be able to actually do this without dying, Darcy worked with Hope van Dyne on the quantum entangled communication stone. She couldn’t come out of hiding with the Sokovia Accords situation, but was sent data and teleconferenced enough for SI engineers to churn out a rudimentary tracking device in less than a week.

Which brought them to a massive crevasse in the Greenland ice sheet. Working off of the information they’d gleaned from the communication stone and Sif’s memory, they’d mapped a basic plan for how they would realm-hop back to Asgard. Jane would have to calculate new entry points on each planet based on where Thor’s transmissions had come from, but it seemed… doable. Actually, not just doable. Possible. Probable. Likely, even.

It didn’t quite feel real until Tony radioed from the site set up a quarter mile west of them. The crevasse, which plunged at least a mile down into the ice sheet, measured about fifty yards across at the mouth, and narrowed down to a few feet within less than 300 yards.

They’d really have to burn it in order to create a wormhole before they smashed into the sides of the crevasse. And with the speeds they’d likely be seeing, Jane knew her chances of survival would be pretty slim, unless there were some magical alien safety features Sif neglected to tell them about in her rundown about the ship and it’s parts.

The ship’s engine hummed as they hovered over the crevasse about three quarters of a mile up from the surface of the ice sheet. If she and Tony had gotten their math right, they needed to reach adequate velocity to open a rift when they were between 240 and 250 yards, so their margin for error was vanishingly small. (There were a lot of Back to the Future jokes tossed around at that particular point in their sleep deprived calculations--late night laughs about getting their Delorean to hit 88 miles per hour at the exact right time.)

Their radio, a shoddy little shortwave thing that would only serve a purpose for their initial preparations, crackled to life with the sound of Tony Stark saying, “Jane, everything is set to specifications. We’ll be getting a shit ton of data for you to look at when you get back.”

She huffed out a little laugh. “When I get back,” she repeated, almost to herself. She depressed the transmitter button. “Darcy, make sure he doesn’t steal any of my data,” she said.

When she released the button, Tony replied, “What, was one Nobel prize not enough for you?”

Darcy’s voice came over the radio then, sharp and vehement. “Stop bantering about data and just don’t die please. And since I know you’re gonna worry about it low key in the back of your brain, yes, we have several backup drives and another at a secondary location. You’ll be able to play back every minute of this absolutely terrifying experience if you so desire it  _when you get back_.” The last four words were said as an absolute threat.

Jane softened. Her one-time intern, now assistant and arguably best friend was one of the few reasons her journey was even possible in the practical sense. Jane was hardly a renegade scientist chasing down fringe theories anymore, she was a highly sought after lecturer and collaborator in the science world. Darcy would be managing the gap her absence left, which was no mean feat.

And on the other, less rational hand… it was nice to be cared about. With Thor being gone, Darcy had effectively become her support system, and the affection that bloomed in her chest at her friend’s worry stole her breath.

“I’ll be fine,” Jane replied back. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

“Hate to break up the party,” Tony said, “but we have readings showing that molecular destabilization is at optimal. It’s time for you ladies to hit it.”

Jane looked over at Sif, who held the main control yoke. She wasn’t wearing her armor, but was still clothed in her Earth garb, her chestplate and bracers stowed in a leather-looking bag strapped to the back of her seat. Sif gave a resolute nod and reached for the main ignition switches. The ship’s engine began to hum louder, the deep bass of it pulsing through Jane’s neck and chest.

Sharp excitement welled within Jane. Deep down, every scientist who studied space kind of wanted to be an astronaut.

“Engine initializing,” Jane said. “Activating Realm Hopper in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.” Jane did not have a steering yoke in front of her, but a panel of various switches and dials that would control the wormhole-portion of their engine. She flicked two of the primary startup switches. A sharp, high pitched whir joined the sound of the Alcubierre engine.

Jane felt a smile stretch across her face. It was the sound of the universe at her feet, beckoning her forward. The danger and potential hazards fell away, leaving only pure thrill.

She was about to create her own wormhole, and she was going to cross it.

“I’m the next Neil fucking Armstrong,” she whispered.

Sif maneuvered them into position, tilting the nose of the craft downwards. Gravity pulled Jane forward against her harness. It was a clear day with perfect visibility, so when they were pointed downwards at the crevasse, not a cloud stood between them and the surface but open air.

“Ready?” Sif asked.

Jane could only nod, all of her internal organs having relocated to her throat.

“Engine engaged,” Sif said, and with a flick of one last control panel switch, she pushed the control yoke forward and they literally blasted downwards.

Jane was launched straight backwards into her seat, and though her internal organs may have felt as though they were in her throat, now they felt like they were pressed all the way back against her spine. Her hands dug into the arms of her seat as though her life depended it. The engine began to pulse in a steady one-two rhythm as they approached the terminal velocity. The Realm Hopper’s whine began to get distinctively louder.

The ice sheet was already upon them, and they plunged headlong into the darkness of the crevasse in the blink of an eye.

Jane didn’t even have time to pray to whoever was listening before the familiar streaks of rainbow light began to flash sporadically out the windows and suddenly their craft was bursting through the rift.

Light from the planet’s sun blinded her shocked retinas only for a moment before she adjusted and saw a vast expanse of desert sand, sulfuric yellow with streaks of dark brown across it. Sharp black pillars that looked like thin, tall mountains made the horizon jagged. Jane didn’t have much more time to ogle the world she’d brought them to; Sif cursed as their craft took a sudden dive, the Alcubierre drive whining in a way that did not sound great.

“Try to cycle down the hyperdrive!” Jane shouted over the din of the engine.

Sif grunted a response, and began flicking switches across the dash. The engine did become decidedly quieter, but it still sounded ill and they were still losing altitude. The planetary rift they’d crossed only spit them out about 20 meters off the ground, so there wasn’t much more altitude they could lose before they would crash.

Sif was hauling the control yoke backwards, desperately trying to pull up and decelerate at the same time, and neither was going particularly well.

“Hold on!” Sif shouted before the bottom of the ship made contact with the sand, bouncing harshly and causing the ship to rattle around them. The nose tipped down on the second bounce into the planet surface, harsh vibrations causing Jane’s teeth to clack together as the ship swiftly decelerated. The craft sheared into the yellow sand, the cloud of blowback obscuring their view until the ship finally ground to a halt.

The main viewport was almost completely covered in dust, but there was enough of a gap towards the top of the craft that Jane could look out.

(Crash landing? Unplanned, but Jane was sitting on a literal alien planet! And her tech had gotten them there!)

The sun was shrouded in clouds that had a pink cast, and the ground itself, aside from the yellow tinge, looked a lot like the salt flats seen on Earth. Across the horizon, sharp spires rose up into the sky, black and blurry with distance.

She looked over at Sif in the captain’s seat; she was breathing hard, one hand poised at the steering yoke as the other flicked across various dials and switches across the dashboard. Jane felt the vibration of the ship’s engine finally cycle down and give one last pathetic sputter, and Sif met her eye once the ship had fallen still and silent.

“We made it,” Sif said, at the same time Jane laughed out, “We didn’t die!”

Sif’s eyes widened. “What?”

“There was like… a definitely nonzero chance that we would literally explode as soon as we hit terminal velocity, but it’s fine. Because we didn’t!”

Sif stared for a moment, mouth slightly agape, but then dissolved into laughter and tipped her forehead against the steering yoke.

“Oh, Jane Foster, we will get along splendidly,” she said. Sif sat back, and squinted out the window, taking in the landscape as Jane had done a moment before.

Jane had just hurried through unlatching her harness and reached under her seat for her bag, which had thankfully remained secure as well through their less than stellar landing when she registered the smell of smoke.

She stood like a shot and turned towards the back of the ship where the engine was located. In their slapdash haste, they hadn’t bothered to make the ship habitable for the four people it was meant to hold.

Apparently, a skiff like this would host a gravity generator and the engine side-by-side beneath the floor. The gravity generator had been shot to hell and she and Tony had scrapped it for parts to build the Realm Hopper addition. The engine itself had required a few bulky Midgard repairs, and thus about two-thirds of the floor behind the captain and co-pilot seats had been removed to make room, much like a supercharged engine that protruded above the hood of a vintage car.

So Jane did not have any real obstruction when she looked back to see smoke pouring out of the Alcubierre drive.

“Shit, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire--” Jane said, and began looking around for-- “Do we have a fire extinguisher?”

Sif looked confused. “A what?”

Jane kept spinning, looking for the red canister she knew would absolutely not be anywhere because why would an alien ship have a fire extinguisher--

“We need to get outside,” Jane said.

Sif noticed their predicament and uttered a word she’d heard Thor say numerous times and the Allspeak apparently didn’t have a translation for.

“Come on,” Sif urged. She untied her own bag from where it was lashed behind her, stood from her seat, and headed to the door. Without much fanfare, Sif kicked through it, the metal screeching as it tore open.

Jane hitched her bag across her shoulders and followed Sif outside.

She didn’t have much time to marvel at the majesty of the planet (!!!) they’d landed on, as she jogged a ways away and dropped her bag and then headed back for the ship.

“Jane, what are--”

“We need the Realm Hopper,” she threw back over her shoulder. The smoke was fairly billowing out of the fuselage, dark gray and ominous, and Jane thought she saw the light of full flames beginning to flicker through the open doorway. She swore loudly and ran her hands through her hair.

Her mind whirled through ideas--she didn’t have anything big enough to throw over the whole engine to starve it of oxygen, but it was a spaceship, if they just closed the door, maybe that could--

She groaned when upon closer inspection, she saw one of the body fins had been ripped away, exposing the inside of the ship and allowing more oxygen in. Who knew how many other gaps in the body had been created in their less than graceful landing?

That’s when her attention turned to the yellowed sand beneath her feet.

She dropped to a knee and scooped up a handful of the loose solid.

“So I have kind of a dumb plan,” she called over to Sif, “but it’s the only one I’ve got right now.”

Sif appeared next to her, kneeling as well. “Tell me.”

Jane sniffed hesitantly at the small pile of sand in her hand. While not overtly offensive, she did smell a faint undercurrent of rotten egg. A chemist she was certainly not, but she’d taken enough classes to know a bit more than the basics.

“I’m pretty sure this is a sulfur compound,” she said. “And sulfur is highly flammable.”

Sif gave her a confused look but said nothing.

“I don’t know how much is in this, so my plan I guess is kind of two-fold. Either it’s a low enough content that it doesn’t burn and we smother the fire. Or, it’s a high enough content, it burns for a bit and replaces all the oxygen on the ship with sulfur dioxide gas, which should smother the flames anyway.” Jane paused, thinking of everything she knew about sulfur. “It might explode after that at some point because sulfur dust is really, really easily ignitable, but we should have time to get the Realm Hopper out, in whatever condition it’s in.”

“You’re right, this is a dumb plan,” Sif said, but not in dismissal.

Jane shrugged. “I don’t have any other ideas, and starting from scratch on the Realm Hopper is going to be a huge delay that I don’t think we can afford.”

Sif shook her head, and then laughed lightly. “Okay, Jane Foster. Tell me what I need to do.”

Jane outlined her plan, and they set to work.

Sif used her shield as a shovel (which, by the way, she just reached into her very normal sized bag and just took out like she was goddamn Hermione or something), and Jane the broken off fuselage fin to heap piles of sand in the door and over the source of the flames. At first, it looked like basic smothering might work, until Jane saw a blue cast flame emerging at the edges of their sand covering.

“Sif!” Jane shouted, “It’s time!”

Sif tossed her shield back towards the safety zone of their bags, and lifted the door back into place. Sif turned to that her back was against the door, and with a determined plant of her feet, she pushed the door fully back into the frame.

Jane retreated to the safety zone a few dozen feet away. They couldn’t afford for Jane to injure her lungs with the fumes from the sulfur dioxide, so she would stay a safe distance, and watch for the smoke still pouring out of the hole where the fin used to be to die off. Jane felt like it shouldn’t take too long, right? The sulfur would probably burn pretty quickly and all the oxygen would be gone, replaced with sulfur dioxide long enough for Sif to make a mad dash inside, rip the engine out, and bring it out to Jane so that she could extract the Realm Hopper from it.

The smoke began to taper, and then ceased all together.

“Go!” shouted Jane, and Sif pulled the door open once more and she leapt into the craft. There was the sound of shrieking metal and an aggravated groan from Sif, but she appeared no more than ten seconds later, bearing the main driver of the engine upon her back.

Jane began to feel a little shock that her dumbass idea had worked, but they still weren’t out of the woods yet. “We should move back a bit further.”

It was a good thing they did, because not thirty seconds later, the ship ignited in a concussive explosion that knocked Jane forward a few steps.

Sif dropped the engine between them with a huff as they turned back toward the ship. There wasn’t much to properly burn, but the panels that made up the fuselage were bent and singed beyond repair. The door had been blown off of one hinge, and several electrical fires seemed to be working their way through the rest of the ship’s systems. The glass windows seemed perfectly intact, but otherwise, it seemed like a lost cause. They stood in silence for a moment while they looked upon the remains of their craft.

Sif was the one to break it. “Not even a day into our journey and we’ve already caused an explosion.”

“To hear Thor tell it, this is usually how all journeys including you go.” The joke slipped out of Jane without her thinking about it, and a flash of nervous anxiety fled down her spine before Sif’s laughter made Jane look over at her.

Sif responded, “Perhaps if I stopped carousing with the both of you, I might not find myself in such predicaments.”

Her words struck a chord, and Jane looked back at their destroyed ship. “I’m sorry for this,” she said. This was not how she’d imagined her first self-made wormhole trip across the universe, and she’d given them a whole set of problems that were all worst case scenarios.

“This is through no fault of your own,” replied Sif. “I knew this ship wouldn’t last us much longer. Admittedly, I hadn’t planned on the explosion, but I have been in worse straights. We will see this through.”

The steadfastness and surety reminded Jane of Thor in the best way, and calmed her rapidly spiraling thought process.

“You’re right. Yeah, we got this,” Jane said, almost to herself.

Don’t try to fix the whole thing in one go, she thought. Break it down and go one step at a time.

She dipped down to her bag, where she had, amongst other things, a set of tools that would allow her to remove the Realm Hopper from the engine. She withdrew those, neatly packed together in rolls of fabric, and handed the bag over to Sif. “Can you take out the tablet in there? It should still be interfaced with your map.”

Interfacing a modified Stark Industries tablet with a holographic data crystal from another world was essentially like trying to take Ada Lovelace’s Analytical Engine of 1822 and sync it with a modern AI. Thankfully, the data crystal was able to fill most of the operational gaps the tablet left, and it functioned more or less in cooperation so that Jane could calculate each of their jumps.

Jane took to her knees next to the main driver of the engine and set to work extracting the Realm Hopper.

“Our first jump was supposed to take us to Theren,” Jane said as she began the semi-arduous process of extracting her device. It was built a bit like a spider that wrapped its legs around the main body of the engine. Since it sat on top of everything, the damage from the flames was minimal, but Jane needed to be careful if she wanted to avoid any further harm.

Sif held the tablet with one hand and placed the data crystal on the ground with the other. With practiced movements, tapped the crystal to bring up a portion of the planetary map. The hologram was three dimensional and glowed a soft bluish white. The planets, stars, and moons glowed, their positions latticed with a criss-crossing network of navigational lines that resembled longitude and latitude on a map. One of the planets on the map was particularly bright, and Sif reached into the hologram and used two fingers to enlarge it. The hologram magnified the planet, bringing detail of the surface into focus and displaying a small information box that was written in a language Jane didn’t recognize.

“We’re certainly here. I’ve been here a few times,” Sif confirmed. “Admittedly, not to the Flatlands,” she said, gesturing around them, “but if my crystal is properly calibrated, then I believe that is Renos--” she pointed to the horizon, where the black spires Jane had noticed upon entry were starting to look distinctly civilization-like, with small dots whizzing around the spires and up towards the sky that were most certainly ships, “--and that’s where we’re going to get our next ship.” Sif spared another look and a scoff at the flaming remains of theirs. “I promise it will be much, much nicer.”

Jane nodded, glad that it seemed like Sif had some semblance of a plan, and gestured towards the tablet. “Can you run the program to calculate the next jump point?”

“Of course.”

Silence settled over them as Jane worked on detaching each of the “legs” of the Realm Hopper from the matching components on the engine. Jane’s mind has been relatively in the present for the duration of their time on Theren--what with all the unplanned excitement, she didn’t really have the time or capacity to worry about what would happen a few hours from now.

But now, as she settled into engineering mode and her hands moved over the device like it was second nature, her mind regained the latitude to wander.

“I don’t suppose we have money to buy a ship?” Jane asked.

Sif sighed. “Some. I didn’t start with much in the first place in Knowhere. I’ll have to look around and see what dealers there may be in the city.” She looked contemplatively over at the ship. “It may be worthwhile to salvage the windows and sell them. Geodin glass fetches a good price.”

Jane nodded absently. “Thor’s transmission from this planet is old. One of the first ones he sent. So I’m not sure what information we’ll be able to find about what he was doing or where he was going, but it puts us in a good position jump-wise to get to more recent stuff.” Jane glanced back at their burning ship, the smoke from the blaze drifting high into the air in a pillar of dark gray. “Is anyone from the city going to come investigate that? I don’t want us getting arrested by the alien version of SHIELD or local police or something.”

Sif shook her head. “Flatlands fires are common, and as for a police force, this is an outpost planet. Planetary security is outsourced by the corporations who do business through the space ports. They usually don’t bother with anything besides theft in city limits.”

Jane was wholly fascinated by the entirety of Sif’s explanation because by the sound of it, alien capitalism was also a thing, but she was struck by her first statement a bit harder than anything else. Flatlands fires.

Her hands paused in their work, and she looked back down at the ground, at the sulfurous compound she’d recently used to blow up their ship. It was literally  _everywhere_.

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news again,” Jane said, “but we should probably move. And then probably keep moving until we get somewhere that we’re not standing on flammable sand.”

Sif’s eyes traveled the same path that Jane’s did--to their burning ship, down to the yellow sand beneath their feet, and then up at Jane. She let out a half-hearted chuckle, “I do think you and Thor may be cut from the same cloth in terms of bad plans poorly executed.”

Jane smiled a little bit. “How about a bad plan well executed with unintended consequences?”

“I suppose I can’t deny that.”

While their movements around each other weren’t exactly practiced, but they managed to get themselves set to move with minimal difficulty. After harvesting the fancy glass from the burning ship while Jane called out numerous warnings to  _please_  be careful, Sif dragged them back over to where Jane had begun to pack her tools away and check on the progress of the jump calculations (they were still quite a few hours away yet from having new coordinates.) The Realm Hopper legs were fully detached and she lifted the device off of the ruined Alcubierre drive.

There were three Geodin windows, unscathed from the crash and explosion, if a little foggy from the smoke residue--the main viewport, which was about seven feet by three feet and gently curved, and the two smaller windows from the sides, smaller ovals which both fit well within the confines of the main viewport with room to spare. Sif had them tied together and created a basic harness for herself with what looked like ratchet tie-down straps, procured from the magical bag of hers, so that she could drag the large plates of glass behind her.

Jane adjusted the Realm Hopper in her arms so that she could carry it like a bag of groceries--a thirty-one pound bag of groceries, anyway.

“Ready?” Sif asked. Jane nodded. “Good. It looks like it will be about a day’s walk, so let’s get moving.”

And so they began their trek to Renos. Thankfully, the sand was somewhat firm, so Jane didn’t have to slog like she was going over Saharan sand dunes, but it was not nearly as easy to traverse as the familiar, hard-packed sands of New Mexico surrounding Puente Antiguo. Despite the day being partially cloudy, the sun was harsh and the sand radiated heat, and after about 20 minutes of walking, Jane started to regret all those skipped gym days.

The Realm Hopper hadn’t felt like too terrible a burden, initially. She had some heavy equipment, and was well used to lugging it from place to place. However, “place to place” usually meant “lab to van, van to research site.” This sustained carrying was definitely not agreeing with her arms, and with the heat making her palms sweat, she kept having to readjust her grip on the device, which seemed at least ten pounds heavier than when they’d started walking.

She was starting to regret her clothing choice as well. She had several sets of clothing packed away, and her typical boots-jeans-tee-flannel research combo had seemed a perfectly reasonable choice when she’d been preparing for this journey, but now Jane would kill to have a tank top and shorts on. Not that it’d help for very long, and she’d open herself up to sunburn (which, she realized with a start, she hadn’t even thought about. She didn’t bring sunscreen, or even a hat. Oh god, she was going to be beet red by the end of this day.) The shirt under her flannel was thoroughly soaked through with sweat, her flannel not far behind. She didn’t even want to consider her jeans.

The worst part was, Sif was definitely starting to notice. Jane tried her best to keep up with Sif’s steady clip, but she was, without a doubt, starting to fall behind.

After about twenty or so minutes of silent slogging, Jane’s breathing becoming progressively labored, Sif stopped.

It took Jane a few steps to notice, wrapped up as she was in putting one foot in front of the other, and when she did she turned. “What are you doing?”

Sif answered, “Put the engine on the glass.”

“What?”

Sif’s answering sigh was frustrated. “I appreciate your fortitude, but please set your pride aside and let me help.”

“My… pride?” Jane should probably drink some of the water she’d brought with, because her mind felt sluggish.

Sif’s ire seemed to grow. “Midgardians are not as physically capable as Asgardians. That is simply a statement of fact. Refusing to utilize this is not only stupid, but actively counterproductive. You’re more likely to drop dead of exhaustion than you are to reach Renos as you currently are. Now put the damned engine on the glass.”

Jane felt a bit like a chastened child, which wasn’t particularly pleasant, and she clutched the Realm Hopper closer to her chest. She replied after a few beats of heavy silence with Sif’s impatient gaze upon her, “It’s not pride, you know.”

Sif didn’t say anything, but cocked her head slightly.

Jane bit the inside of her cheek, trying to scrounge up the courage and the words to explain herself. It all ended up coming out in a bit of a rush--“I still feel like I should be apologizing for ruining our only mode of transportation. And I always thought you hated me, and now I get you stranded on some remote outpost planet without a way to get off it. I know science doesn’t go perfectly the first time, engineering even more so, but I still feel like a bit of a failure because I’ve seen what Asgardian tech is like compared to what we have on Earth. Let’s just say I have a complex about it. And what with the whole Odin calling me a goat and everything--”

“Jane,” Sif gently interrupted, “I never hated you.” That certainly drew Jane up short. “Resented you? Perhaps a bit, when I first heard about Thor’s mortal, and then when he brought you to Asgard… It was more what you represented than who you were.”

“And what--what did I represent?”

Sif smiled, a soft, sad thing that spoke of times long gone. “I was never supposed to be a warrior. I decided to enter the military academy instead of pursuing a traditional education when I was young. I met Thor there. After the Valkyrie massacre, women were a rare sight in the army, but Thor accepted me right away. I spent most of my formative years running around with him and Loki, and once we grew older, it was assumed that we would marry.”

There it was, the thing that Jane had always assumed but had never confirmed. She’d never pressed Thor on it, had never wanted to be the naggy girlfriend who worries about her significant other’s exes. Her insecurity welled up against her will.

Sif must have noticed her expression. “I cannot say I never loved him. I’m still not sure if I can say I don’t love him now.” She laughed a little bit. “But I am quite certain that he’s never thought of me as more than the sister he never had. I was trying to come to terms with that since long before he met you.

“But please understand, the only thing that stood between us was my feelings for Thor. I have truly never thought less of you because of you being mortal, or being of Midgard. In fact, I admire you. It takes great fortitude to walk straight up to Loki and slap him,” she chuckled here, and Jane felt a smile tugging at her lips as well. “You carried an Infinity Stone within yourself, you helped Thor defeat an ancient enemy that threatened the entire universe. You’ve managed to create Bifrost-like travel with the most rudimentary technologies. It would be the height of churlishness for me to refuse friendship with a woman of such caliber simply because I felt some jealousy for her romantic ties.”

“Well, that--” Jane cast about for more words, coming up woefully short. “Okay,” she settled on. She moved forward, gingerly placing the Realm Hopper on Sif’s glass sled.

“The satchel too,” Sif insisted, and Jane complied without complaint, laying her bag next to the Realm Hopper. “I would suggest you get on as well, but I’m not about to push my luck,” Sif quipped.

That pulled a laugh from Jane’s chest, a little breathless yet, but genuine. “Thank you,” she said softly.

Sif stepped toward her and placed a friendly hand on her shoulder. “You are more than welcome.” With a tip of her head and a determined step, Sif set off again, and Jane followed, significantly less burdened, both physically and mentally.

“If I may offer you some advice,” Sif added, “don’t listen to what Odin said. I--I care for him as though he were my own father,” this said with a grimace and Jane remembers Sif’s suspicions about Odin’s motive in sending her to Knowhere, “but he is not without fault or without mistakes in judgement.”

Jane scoffed. “Oh, I know that. But then I think, ‘How much easier would it be for both of us if we just didn’t do this?’ I know that’s what his dad wants.” The thoughts almost felt traitorous spilling out of her mouth. When she and Thor were together, it was easy to push those thoughts to the back of her mind. But in the last months without him, they’d become louder. This was the first she’d spoken them aloud, but certainly not the first time they’d been felt.

Sif exhaled, her profile against the sky thoughtful. “My brother has said that destinies are shaped of their own accord by those walking the path, not by the outside observer. It was one point upon which Odin and he disagreed often. In the time I’ve spent with you, the more I realize how true his sentiment is. You’ve traveled across galaxies to find Thor, Jane Foster. You’ll be traveling across several more. Odin cannot stop you, and I can say based upon years of experience that he certainly cannot stop Thor either,” she finished with a chuckle.

A silence fell between them again, but Jane made it a brief one. She made sure to catch Sif’s eye so that she could hold her gaze as she said, “Thank you. It means a lot to me to hear that from you.”

Sif smiled. “I find it’s best to begin long endeavors with a partner with the air between them clear. So if you’ve any further grievances, air them now,” she said, a touch of mirth to her words.

Jane replied, “Not anymore, really. The, um, jealousy thing. I mean, you’re literally perfect so I was intimidated by you.”

Sif let out a cackle. “Hardly perfect, but the sentiment is appreciated.”

“I do have one grievance left, though,” Jane said. “Or, I guess more of a worry. How are we going to get another ship? Are three nice windows really going to be enough to buy us something that won’t break down after a single jump?”

“I suppose if that’s your only worry so far, we are in far better circumstances than I imagined.”

“Well, for all the other problems, we at least have something of a path to a solution. The ship is the one thing I’m stuck on.”

Sif sighed, “You are right, these will fetch us a good deal of money, but not enough to buy a ship in fair enough condition to complete our journey. Which is why I’ve had to come up with another plan.”

Jane nodded. “So what’s the new plan?”

Sif turned and grinned. “How do you feel about thievery?”


End file.
